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Friday, October 10, 2014

Successful Cree negotiator finds the French-Canadian father he never knew (tearjerker alert)

It took 53 years for Abel Bosum, right, to find his birth father, Cyprien Caron (left). (Abel Bosum)

​Abel Bosum grew up with a Dad-sized hole in his life.He remembers being a boy who envied his friends when they talked about their dads — going hunting or fishing with their fathers, even doing ordinary things.Abel pretended to not care. But in truth, he cared a lot.The story of Abel Bosum starts with a clash of cultures and language. In the 1950s, a young Cree woman named Lucy Busom lived in a settlement near Chibougamau, Que. She met and fell in love with a French-Canadian who hailed from Quebec City, more than 500 kilometres away. They wanted to marry, but her parents refused.Instead, following tradition, the elders arranged a marriage between Lucy and Sam Neepoosh.No one talked much about Abel's biological father, so he grew
up full of questions and feelings, but not even certain of the name of
the man he missed. And that's how it remained — for 53 years.It's not that Abel didn't have a father. He did; Sam adopted
and raised Lucy's son, and Abel will always be grateful for that. Still,
even a kind, adoptive parent couldn't fill the void where Abel pictured
a "real dad."

'I did not know how to react, I did not know what I would say, and I certainly did not know what I would do when I met him.'- Abel Bosum

Then on a lovely summer day in 2008, the spectre of his father reappeared and shook Abel's life to the core.By this time, Abel was was married with children and grandchildren.A family friend reported seeing Abel's missing father in a
shopping mall. That led to an intense search for a man whose name no one
remembered.Abel spoke to all the elders and, bit by bit, pieced together enough information for a computer search.His dad's name: CypienCaron.Try to imagine Abel at this point: He was 53 years old, a successful Cree negotiator
who has his own consulting firm. He was sitting in his car in front of a
suburban home, "stalking" a man he thought might be his father."These were very unsettling moments," said Abel."[It] made me feel like a young boy again. I was experiencing
strange feelings that I had never had before, and I was in turmoil. I
did not know how to react, I did not know what I would say, and I
certainly did not know what I would do when I met him. "On Aug. 19, 2008, father and son finally met in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Que.After years of wondering what that moment would be like, Abel
describes it like this: "He reached out to me, hugged me and whispered,
'My son, I am so happy. I love you!'"It is the fantasy of many adopted children. For Abel it was a reality — CypienCaron was happy to connect with the child he was never allowed to father.
For the next six years, father and son spent a lot of time doing the
things dads and boys might do — hunting and fishing. Abel's family was
suddenly included in much larger family reunions.Six years is a long time in some ways. It was far too short a time for Abel when he learned Caron was mortally ill. He was, however, able to spend the last days of his dad's life at his bedside, with enough time to both of them to say everything that was in their hearts.When his dad died, Abel wrote, “Cyprien, it broke
my heart to lose you but you did not go alone, a part of me went with
you the day God took you home. In life I love you dad, and in death I
love you still, in my heart you will hold a place no one could ever
fill!”Abel Bosum is currently writing a book about Cyprien Caron
and the way their lives connected. It will be published in the near
future.

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To Veronica Brown

Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.

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“…sometimes shocking, often an emotional read…this book is for individuals interested in the culture and history of the Native American Indian, but also on the reading lists of universities offering ethnic/culture/Native studies.”

“Well-researched and obviously a subject close to the heart of the authors/compilers, I found the extent of what can only be described as ‘child-snatching’ from the Native Americans quite staggering. It’s not something I was aware of before…”

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Good words

I agree with you on the caring of “orphans” – true orphans, not “paper orphans” as Kathryn Joyce describes in her book, The Child Catchers. The most important thing to remember, however, is that the orphan’s original identity and family connection and heritage must remain intact and available to him or her forever. This business of adoption – and I do mean the multi-billion-dollar, unregulated business of adoption – of wiping out the child’s original identity, falsifying birth records with the adopters’ names, altering facts such as place of birth, severing familial kinship, must stop … Immediately. And the outrageous injustices foisted upon adoptees and their families for the past 100 years must be addressed and righted. We are faced today with six to seven million people who were basically legally kidnapped, sold to the highest bidder, their identities falsified, and placed in a lifelong, imposed witness protection program for which there is no legal recourse. Then told by church officials, agency and government functionaries that they have no right to know who they are, to do genealogy or learn about important family medical history, or know the identity of or associate with blood relatives. This is how the Judeo-Christian society has interpreted “caring for orphans”, for it’s own selfish interests and greed. Starting with Georgia Tann, the woman charged with kidnapping and selling 5,000 children, most of whom were given to the rich and powerful who then colluded with her to “seal” adoptions and cover their nefarious activities (see, for example, Gov. Herbert Lehman, NY, 1935).

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Canada's Residential Schools

The religious organizations that operated the schools — the Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Jesuits of English Canada and some Catholic groups — in 2015 expressed regret for the “well-documented” abuses. The Catholic Church has never offered an official apology, something that Trudeau and others have repeatedly called for.

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As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.” The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.

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